I’ve decided to try a different tactic: I’m going to choose to watch him (and his henchmen) while at the same time drawing on every resource in my body awareness arsenal to sustain my space and energy.

I also know that moving stiffly--ambulating with the bare minimum of joints engaged--becomes a habit that can’t entirely be blamed on my bodily tissues. Habits take place in the brain. The more often I move stiffly, the more familiar and less optional that way of moving becomes. I can choose how I move.

Fascial breathing is quite striking the first time you tune into it. It might even seem unnerving if you‘re not used to being so intimate with your aliveness. Fascial breathing makes it obvious that you’re alive in your body. This may touch your vulnerability, reminding you of your impermanence.

When we resist doing a task, part of the body is holding back. Instead of all your muscle units working together to finish the chore, a high percentage of them rebel and pull the opposite way. It’s like driving the car with the brakes on. The chore feels heavy, pressured and hurried.

Not merely aware of the space around them, our ancestors were integrated into their surroundings. We can imagine that they viewed themselves—if they viewed themselves at all--as aspects of the tensional integrity of all life.

Current fascia research suggests that we’ve had it backwards for several millennia. This research indicates that bones, muscles, and organs--indeed, all other tissues in the body—may be, in fact, specializations within the unified medium of fascia. A primary constituent of embryonic development, fascia is the very clay of our creation. In other words, fascia is the stuff we’re made of.

We dipped into pelvic dance, the ancient feminine communion originally meant to prepare women for pregnancy and childbirth. We explored the possibility of dancing from our ovaries, from our cervices. If we could dance that way, could we not also walk that way? But where and when, in current culture, would that feel safe?

Contemporary living offers little demand for unexpected and unusual actions. Bereft of movement, our fascia slowly solidifies into the default position of modern life--chair-sitting. If we were designed to be sedentary, our bodies wouldn’t need 360 joints.

Contemporary living undervalues body awareness and overrides it most of the time. But could it be that listening to our interior body signals has an evolutionary advantage? If so, we undervalue this capacity to our detriment. We need to practice activating it.

When you’re feeling self-confident and assertive, there’s an automatic uplift to your chest, spine and neck—your posture automatically organizes itself for the better. But no one feels terrific all the time, right? By teaching yourself the physical sensations that correspond to a good mood, you can use your body-mind connectivity to good advantage. Body awareness helps you cultivate positive outlooks in humdrum situations…

As a Rolfing® practitioner, I've observed that tension in the elbows affects the whole body. Habitual flexion there, however slight, pulls the upper arm forward in its socket, starting a chain reaction that pulls the shoulder blades forward, and the collarbones and chest down, and the neck forward. Elbow tension often corresponds with flexion in the spine just behind the diaphragm, and that interferes with fullness of breath. The postural end result feels, and certainly looks, nothing like the upper crust ladies of Downton…

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It has been my experience that people who understand and respect their bodies tend to have an open and compassionate perspective on life. My mission, as a writer, teacher and Rolfer, is to help people further that understanding and respect. I believe that becoming more attuned to our physical experience affects the choices we make in relation to ourselves, to our fellow human beings, our environment and to our planet. My mission, then, is to contribute to humanity’s deeper embodiment.— Mary